I traced the ink rippling up from the sketch of the boy’s t-shirt, thumbnail grazing every smear and tear. It didn’t feel so foreign anymore or like some ancient thing that needed unraveling. Because he was a person. A person who might belong there among my old books and records and my grandmother’s quilt and every tree I’d ever climbed as a child. A person I might have been meant to meet. He was a person.
I sat there trying to make sense of things, wafting between fear and impatience. Because I had two choices: I could wait on the universe or I could find him first. I could find him.
There was a light knock on the door. “Homework?”
I flipped my sketchbook closed. “Yeah, still catching up.”
My mom sat on the edge of my bed. “So, I just talked to Dr. Sabine.”
“About the trial?”
“No, not exactly. I…might have asked her what she thought about you touring some college campuses this spring.”
“What?” I sat up. “Really? What did she say?”
“She said it couldn’t hurt. But she also said we have to be realistic about our expectations.”
“I know.”
“You may not get to go as far as you’d like.”
“I know,” I repeated.
“You may not get to…”
“I get it. Trust me. I am expectation free,” I said, even though I’d already decorated my dorm in my head and decided what I’d pack and made my class schedule. “Zero expectations.”
“You’re sure you want to do this?” she asked.
“Yes. Positive.”
And I was sure. I knew I wanted to go, to live that life even if it was just for a day. What I wasn’t sure of was whether or not I’d be able to find a way to manage my episodes, if some spontaneous discovery in the next few months would lead to a cure. Or if the things that were happening to me were a sign that a cure, even if I did manage to find one, wouldn’t do much good.
But I could hope, right? I could go and I could hope.
“Okay,” my mom sighed, “then I’ll make the arrangements.” She placed a hand on my forehead. It was warm. “You’re brave, you know that?”
I smiled even though all sick people are brave by default. My mom’s eyes flicked to my window. That’s when I registered the voices, someone yelling. She shot up and I followed her outside, shadows tangled in the grass. My uncle’s shoulders were tensed and then for the first time in eight months I saw my dad. He was pinned against the door of a truck I didn’t recognize, my uncle’s hand gripping his shoulder.
“Patrick?”
My uncle loosened his grip and turned toward my mom’s voice.
“Elena,” my dad choked out. He took a step toward us. “Bryn?”
We were both quiet and I could see my mom’s hands stiff at her sides, knuckles white.
“What are you doing here?” she finally said.
“I came to see you.”
“Well, you’ve seen us,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady.
My mom shot me a look. “Go inside.”
“Elena, please,” he pleaded.
My mom just kept staring at me. “Go.”
I watched the three of them through the small kitchen window. My uncle was yelling. My mom grabbed his hand and said something I couldn’t quite make out. My uncle crossed his arms. My dad wiped his brow. My mom never moved an inch. But then I finally saw her lips move, hurling something fierce and controlled. Then my dad walked back to his truck and I watched the all too familiar gleam of his taillights as they disappeared at the end of the street.
It had been eight months since I’d last seen him. Six months since he’d tried to call. I thought maybe he’d fallen off the face of the earth. Done us all a favor and disappeared for good. The moment I saw him I felt raw. But I was supposed to forget about him, to hate him. And I had. I did. I hated him. But then why did I feel like crying?
I spent the rest of the afternoon hiding in the garage, a hot flame poised between my fingers. I watched the tips burn pink, my skin sweating, the callouses lost during another long episode. Another weakness to remedy now that I was finally awake again, though I wasn’t sure I wanted to be. I always hated the reconditioning but sometimes it was nice to have somewhere to escape to. Somewhere transitory and yet stitched together with all the things I’d thought I’d lost. With all the things I hadn’t even realized I’d found.
I stuck metallic burrs on the flower’s stem and sharp wings on the backs of bugs that shouldn’t fly—trying to figure out how to finish it and trying to forget that my dad was just here. That he still existed at all.
I stared at the sculpture, snapping off pieces until the sharp edge of one carved into my palm. I bit down on the wound until it stopped bleeding. The flower stood there, dull, static. It needed more contrast, more fervor, more life. It needed a pulse. My eyes fell on the stack of gears I’d been picking from to make the seeds. It needs a pulse.
I walked into the kitchen to see if my uncle had some kind of wiring in the back of his truck but he wasn’t there. I checked the living room. Empty. Then I peered into the hallway and I saw my mom pressed against the wall, one of my uncle’s hands gripping hers, the other tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. Her cheeks were stained, eyes red, and then he leaned in and kissed her. She glanced over his shoulder, the air tripping over her lips the moment she saw me.
“Bryn.”
But I didn’t say anything. I just pushed past them both and locked myself in my room. She hovered by the door for a while, knocking, asking me to come out. I heard her sigh, deflated. Then I watched her shadow disappear from the base of the door. A minute later I heard my uncle’s truck rumble to life and then he was pulling out of the driveway.
My grandmother’s voice rose over the muffled hum of the television.
“She’s not a kid.”
My mom lowered her voice, whispering something I couldn’t quite make out.
“Well, maybe it’s not her you don’t want to be honest with,” my grandmother huffed. “Maybe it’s you.”
They were quiet after that, the only sound the buzz of the microwave as my grandmother, no doubt, was trying to finish off the last of the week’s leftovers.
I couldn’t stop thinking about them standing there. No. Curled into each other in the shadows. Too close. And they’d never said a word. Not to me at least.
My insides felt bruised as if I’d been the one who’d done something wrong. Like I’d revealed this secret that didn’t even belong to me. Even though they were the ones who’d lied. They lied.
I texted Dani and told her to meet me at Nacho’s Tacos—a little hole in the wall where all the college kids went to nurse a hangover. I climbed out of my bedroom window and five blocks later I found Dani and Felix in one of the dark green booths.
“Glad you could make it seeing as you weren’t invited,” I said.
“He’s just here for the food,” Dani said.
“I do love tacos.”
“So what happened?” Dani asked.
“You ready?” I took a deep breath. “I caught my uncle and my mom kissing.”
“Shit,” Felix said. “I knew I should have ordered something stronger.”
“Really?” Dani asked. “You saw them?”
I nodded.
“Were they vertical or horizontal?” Felix asked. Dani smacked his arm and he dropped a salsa filled chip into his lap. “That was perfectly good salsa and that was a perfectly legitimate question.”
“You’re sick.” I chewed on my straw, took a drink. “They were vertical.”
“Ah…now you see here, Dani…” he narrowed his eyes, “body language is key. Where did your uncle have his hands exactly?”
“His hands? I don’t know. By her face.”
“Like this?” He slid a hand behind Dani’s neck and she flinched. I shook my head. “Like this?” He curled his fingers behind her ear.
Dani shivered. “Get off me you creep.”
“Hmm…?
?? I was stalling, reveling in Dani’s discomfort. “Maybe. Try resting your thumb on her cheek. There, now just brush it slightly.”
Dani grew still.
“And his eyes?” Felix asked.
“Staring very intently into hers. Oh, and he was whispering something.”
Felix leaned in, his breath painting Dani’s neck.
She shook him off. “Okay. Enough. You two get off on the sickest shit.”
The waitress came out with our tacos and Felix was lost for a few minutes, Dani regaining her cool.
“So were you upset?” she finally asked.
“I…I mean yes. Shouldn’t I be?”
“Maybe. Did they lie about it?”
“More like a lie by omission.”
“Your uncle’s always around anyway,” Dani said. “Would it really be that bad?”
I tried to imagine how much different it would be if my mom and my uncle were the real thing. If he lived with us. If they shared a room. I dropped my taco back onto my plate mid-bite.
“Your mom’s been alone a long time, hasn’t she?” Felix asked. “I mean have you ever seen her date anyone?”
“There was that one guy she’d met online during her brief attempt at internet dating. He always smelled like Vienna sausages. Oh, and the guy who worked at the exotic pet store. He always kind of smelled like Vienna sausages too.”
“Anyone serious?” Felix asked.
“Not really.”
“Well,” Dani said, “maybe now you know why.”
“Or maybe she just didn’t like Vienna sausages,” Felix said.
“Or maybe her heart has always belonged to another man,” Dani shot back.
“Or maybe you read too many romance novels,” he said.
“Well, maybe you should try one. Might learn something.”
“Like what?” he said. “How to cradle a baby while flexing my biceps? Or how to stalk someone and convince them I’m their soul mate as opposed to just some creepy fuck who gets off on watching chicks shave their legs? No thanks. I’ll just stick to porn.”
“You’re unbelievable,” she said.
“Thank you. It feels nice to be appreciated.”
“Are you guys done?” I asked.
“Sorry,” Dani said. “But your uncle’s a good guy. Were you really that surprised?”
“It’s my mom we’re talking about here. Yes, I was surprised.”
“And obviously a little pissed off?” she asked.
“Well, yeah it…I don’t know what to think,” I finally said. “Can we just talk about something else?”
“Like maybe the guy in your head?” Felix asked.
“What?” I snapped in Dani’s direction. “You told him?”
“I…I was just trying to make conversation while we were waiting. You were late. It slipped out. I’m sorry.”
“How did it slip out?”
“Calm down, Bryn,” Felix said. “In fact, I’m a little surprised you didn’t come to me sooner seeing as I am the resident expert on all things science fiction.”
“Playing lame video games about robots does not make you an expert,” Dani said.
He shot her a look. “They are not robots. They’re cyborgs.”
“Like that’s any better,” she huffed.
He ignored her, facing me. “So, there’s a guy in your head. He’s in there right now? Like, he can talk through you and shit?”
“That’s not how it works.”
“Good. Just making sure he’s not divulging any of our secrets.”
“Secrets?” Dani laughed. “Like what? That you all masturbate in the shower?”
“Are you going to keep interrupting me or are you going to let me help our sick friend who has a guy in her head who may or may not be the link to some parallel universe where you are not a bitch?”
She froze, glaring at him. Then she lifted the last chip out of Felix’s grasp and shoved it in her mouth. “Now who’s the bitch?”
He cracked a smile, pinched the tip of her nose. “Still you. That’s the one that fell on my crotch.”
She gagged and took a long gulp of her drink.
He looked at me. “It’s an acquired taste. Anyway, Dani said he’s dead.”
“Not exactly,” I said. “I don’t really know what he is.”
“He’s just stuck.”
“Right.”
“You know my mom says she had a dream once that she and my aunt were back in Mexico, still kids,” Felix said. “They’d climbed the windmill on my grandfather’s farm and they were dropping a litter of kittens off the edge.”
“That’s…creepy,” I said.
“No, what’s creepy is that my aunt had the exact same dream. The details were spot on. It was like they were in the same place at the same time.”
“But it’s not a dream,” I said. “KLS patients don’t dream during an episode. And his memory…”
“He doesn’t have one,” Dani added.
I looked at Felix. “And shouldn’t he? If he was dreaming, wouldn’t that imply that at some point he would wake up?”
“So maybe it’s not a dream,” Felix said. He stared out the window. “What about an out of body experience?”
“You mean like all that dramatic white light kind of stuff?” Dani said.
“Or watching yourself have open heart surgery,” I added.
“Or people waking up with different identities,” Felix said. “I once heard about this guy who got fucked up on LSD. Shit sent him into a coma for six weeks.”
“That’s one long trip,” Dani said.
“Yeah, and when he woke up he told his doctors he’d been a soldier in the French Revolution. He even spoke French.”
“Do you think the guy in your head might have done something like that?” Dani asked.
“I don’t know, I guess he could have taken something, but his memory…” I shook my head. Things still weren’t making sense. I turned to Felix. “Who was the guy before?”
“Apparently just some random guy who worked at Best Buy. He’d never even been to France.”
“So the coma gave him a new identity,” Dani said.
“It wiped his memory…”
“And replaced it with a new one.” Dani looked at me. “Do you think that’s what happened to him? What if he’s in that in between place waiting for some new identity to pop into his head?”
“I don’t know…”
“Think about it,” she said. “Maybe he took some kind of drugs, blacked out, and he was supposed to be shot back out on the other side with super human strength or an Italian accent and then he…”
“Got stuck,” I said.
“In your head.” Felix raised an eyebrow. “All of this might almost make sense if it wasn’t for that last part.”
“Besides, the place in Bryn’s head, it’s made up of memories not people,” Dani said.
“And you’re sure you’ve never met him before?” Felix asked.
I shook my head. “No. I’d remember him.”
I would have and not just because of the way he’d held his breath staring at those stars, or the way that wet shirt had clung to his arms, or because of the way he’d looked at me, afraid and then not. But because that place, illusory or not, wasn’t made up of menial every-day things. It was made up of important things. Things I’d cherished and absorbed into my very DNA.
A pen rolled across the table and landed against my hand. “Show him the sketch,” Dani said, handing me a napkin.
I drew the cogs from the boy’s shirt and handed it to Felix. “He was wearing this.”
Felix stared at it. “I don’t…” His eyes flicked over my shoulder and then he was getting to his feet.
“Where’s he going?” I asked.
But then he stopped at the bar, eyes flitting from the sketch to the magazine clippings taped to the back wall. It was a chaotic mural of everything from flyers to posters of local bands sprawling from one end of the restaurant to the other.
/> Felix sidestepped between bar stools, leaning over patrons to get a better look. Dani and I followed him toward the front door and then he stopped. He handed me the sketch and then he pointed.
I saw the symbol I’d drawn—a small glossy cutout partially obscured by a newspaper clipping and a poster of Prince. It was a band flyer from a show three years ago. My breath hitched.
“I wonder if they’re local,” Dani said.
“Does it say who they are?” I pushed a fake plant out of the way and tried to get a closer look.
“Doesn’t look like it,” Felix said.
I pressed my hand to the picture, feeling the shadow of the glue underneath.
“Not a dead end,” Dani said.
My cell phone buzzed in my pocket.
-Where are you?
It was my mom.
“Shit. Busted.”
“Gotta go?” Dani asked.
I nodded. “She’s probably worried.”
“I can keep looking,” Felix said. “Ask around.”
I handed him back the napkin. “Thanks, let me know if you find anything.”
When Dani dropped me off back at the house I didn’t even bother sneaking in through my bedroom window. My mom was sitting on the couch, flipping through the guide on the TV.
“Bryn?”
“I just got some food with Dani, sorry.”
She patted the couch. Great. I sunk down next to her but she didn’t look at me.
“About earlier,” she said. “Bryn, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t.”
She reached for me. “Bryn…”
“You lied to me.”
“We—”
“You lied.”
She looked away. “There was nothing to tell.”
“You call that kiss nothing?”
“Nothing you needed to worry about.”
“What does that mean?”
“Bryn.” She took a breath. “The last thing I ever want is for you to be upset.”
“No. The last thing you want is for you to be upset.”
She looked at me. “You know it’s a trigger.”
“A trigger. You thought I’d have an episode?”
“I was just trying to protect you.”
I heard the quake in her voice then and I bit back my own.
“Well, stop trying.” I stood. “You can’t protect me from everything. I’m not a child.”
“You are my child.”
“I’m seventeen and just because you’re used to caring for me like some kind of infant doesn’t mean I am one. I’m sick, I need you, but don’t use that as an excuse to keep things from me. Not things like this.”
“I knew you’d be upset,” she said, “and now you are.”
“Because you lied to me.”
“Because I lied or because he’s not your dad?”
I took a step back. “How could you even say that?”
“Bryn. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”
I waited for her to finish but she didn’t. She just sat there, not looking at me. I saw the first tear and then I was running. Because I had to. Because I could.
The street was dark but I’d run up and down that sidewalk barefoot so many times that even that felt familiar. I walked to the end of the block, counting the cars parked at the middle school across the street. I could hear music spilling from the gym—some spring play or basketball game—and it made me feel safe.
When I reached the schoolyard I sat down on one of the empty swings, rusty metal heaving with a sharp sigh. I waited for the anger to bubble up inside me like it had been earlier but all I could think about was my mom’s face—something between shame and surprise coloring her cheeks that awful shade of red. And I felt guilty because I loved my mom and because I finally understood why she was alone. Me.
Seeing her with my uncle had stung but suddenly I wasn’t sure why. Maybe because I’d just seen my dad? And because he’d reminded me of everything we’d lost, of everything he’d taken from us. All because he was weak or afraid or just a fucking asshole.
He’d left one day and just disappeared and that was the template for every major change in my life. This huge cosmic disruption. Toxic. Ruining everything. My uncle’s death. My grandfather’s. My dad leaving. My disease. So I was afraid. That was the sting I’d felt. I was afraid of things changing again.
The breeze caught the swing next to me, twisting it, and I closed my eyes, listening to it slowly unravel. I scratched at the chill settling over my arms but the cold just hung there, the warm summer night snuffed out completely.
My eyes were suddenly heavy and when I finally forced them open, the swing next to me was still twisting, a shadow winding between the braided handles. I watched it dance there like spilled ink, winding in and out until it was creeping towards my face.
I inhaled and it tasted like ash. Then it stretched, reaching for me, and when the cold scraped against my skin I shuffled out of the swing, stumbling on the rocks. I watched the shadow swell and contract, the air pouring from my lungs thick and tangled in it. Fog hung on my lips, the cold steeling me to the ground.
The same cold I’d felt that night in the trees with Drew.
I tried to run but all I could do was flinch against the burning, my skin on fire. It crept towards me and in the mist there were haunches, the darkness beastly like something feral on the prowl. But it wasn’t jus fear that pinned me there or even the cold. Something heavy radiated from the shadow, it’s thickness approaching like a storm. It sunk down to my lungs, filling me up, tugging my eyes closed and making me drowsy. Sleep. It was made of it.
But then, just as I was about to give in, to close my eyes and let it drag me under, the darkness shuddered out in a gasp and the cold lifted. When I looked again the shadow was gone and I scrambled to my feet, running all the way home.